Perspectives on the beautiful game of soccer; fueled by enormous amounts of coffee

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Benny Drops the Mic on Jurgen Klinsmann

Benny at MLS media day

Benny Feilhaber lobbed some truth bombs on the USMNT situation with Jurgen Klinsmann today. Reporters who still cover the squad will no doubt have more complete quotes and analysis and soon, but personally, I agree with Feilhaber a lot (more so than with Wambach or LD's comments, for example). Anyway, here's what I transcribed from the MLS media roundtable session.

(Benny was asked about being in the LA area at the same time as the USMNT team, and how did he feel about not getting a look under JK)

For me personally, I’ve accepted the fact that Jurgen’s not
going to call me. If I played the year that I played this last year and didn’t
get called, I’m not getting the opportunity under Jurgen. That’s something I
just have to accept. It’s - I wouldn’t say frustrating, I’m almost sad, because I feel like I’m
playing the best soccer of my career, but I don’t get the opportunity to play
for my country. So yeah, it’s something that I’ve just kind of accepted. It just
is what it is. It’s not going to happen with Jurgen as the coach.

Does that drive you at all? Do you use that as motivation?

Not really. A lot of people get driven by things that they
don’t get. I’m more driven by being able
to do things, like more in a positive way, I guess. I loved winning MLS Cup
with Kansas City, I loved winning Open Cup, I love performing at a high level
every week last year, getting goals and getting assists. All that stuff drives
me. The accolades that come with it are not the thing that I’m thinking of, but
that’s nice, too. All those good things drive me to continue playing well and I’m
hoping that I continue that way this next year and for however long I can keep
playing.

Jurgen seems to have an issue with MLS – does that surprise
you for the coach of the US national team?

I don’t know. I’m sure there are some other coaches that
said some negative things about MLS as well, but – is it surprising? Not
really. From what I see, I think that Jurgen takes some players in MLS and uses
the fact that they’re in MLS to maybe not call them up or whatever. You look at
some of the top players that played this year – you take a Sacha Kljestan, you
take a Dax McCarty, you take a Matt Hedges, I’m sure you could go on and on,
these guys aren’t getting an opportunity. So it’s not just me, there’s people
like that. There’s people in Europe, too. I can’t name a lot of guys, because I
don’t know some of the younger guys, but like an Eric Lichaj, he’s been playing
well in Europe for countless years and he hasn’t really been given any
opportunity either, so, you know, there’s guys in MLS and guys in Europe who
don’t get opportunities with Jurgen for whatever reason. I think that a lot of
these issues - and maybe I’m going off
topic a little bit, but a lot of these issues that some people have with foreign
players getting called in – I have zero problem with that. I think FIFA allows
national teams to get players that weren’t necessarily born in certain countries,
and I think that’s an advantage that any national team coach of any team should
take advantage of, but I don’t think that that Jurgen calls in the best players
that are available to him. That for me is a problem.

Benny back in his USMNT days

There’s players that are
better than other players that he doesn’t get – that don’t get an opportunity
with the national team. That for me is a bigger deal than anything else.
Everybody points fingers at certain things, but for me, that’s the most
important thing. I think the – I’m just talking now, because I know this wasn’t
the question, but in regards to how a coach should approach a team, not just a
national team, but just any team, there’s obviously two duties: One, that’s
making the best team that you can possibly make with the players that are
available to you and Two, try to continuously improve that team so that it
doesn’t stall in any way and continues to improve. And for me, Jurgen seems to
try to do the second one without doing the first one. He’d rather put young
guys on the team who could potentially become important on the team and leave
out players who can make the team better
right now. And for me, that’s the number one job of the national team coach –
of any coach – is not to make the team as good as he can make it in five years,
but to make it as good as he can make it right now and to continuously improve
it for five years. That he doesn’t do - his job. Because there are players in the pool
that do not get called in that have performed well enough on the field to get
an opportunity. That is my biggest problem with how Jurgen selects his players.